Raf

Is this mashup or name that flick?

I pulled a "you guys" and listed the second movie first. So George, you actually have the FIRST movie title in mind.

You're up.

Cleaning Up The Town Saving the Day In the Name of Love

"I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time." "But there are things we *can* control: I can control when the fruit will fall, I can control where to plant the seed: that is no illusion, Master!" "Ah, yes. But no matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach." *** "The secret ingredient is... nothing!" "Huh?" "You heard me. Nothing! There is no secret ingredient." "Wait, wait... it's just plain old noodle soup? You don't add some kind of special sauce or something?" "Don't have to. To make something special you just have to believe it's special." "There is no secret ingredient..."

The Hunt for Red October ?

A student at a historically black college tries to get into a popular fraternity, tapping into an ongoing feud between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned students. One day, a millionaire businessman trying to show his son how important it is to get a formal education decides to enrol, causing a big splash.

On what basis do you declare/discern/judge/conclude God to be moral?

I didn't post for six days. I did not expect no one else to post for six days! For those "guests" who posted while I was taking a break, please check your email. You're welcome to rejoin us, provided you were really you. :)

Ender's Game of Thrones I'm baaa-aaack. As me, I mean.

Ok, guys, I just got in trouble with my fellow mods myself, so I'm really not in a position to get all preachy... But come on! I'm not calling mod attention to this thread because no one has reported it. You guys want to settle it by yourselves, then settle it. That does not mean continuing it publicly until one or both of you get tired. I'm suspending judgment on WordWolf because there have been no complaints. I see that he interacts with JohnIAm A LOT, and to be honest, I don't read all his posts to John in detail. It sometimes requires an interest in the subject matter I don't have. I did read JohnIAm's comment to ME in this thread, so I see he is perfectly capable of expressing disagreement without getting out of line. Post 30 is so far out of line... you can't even SEE the line from post 30. I could have moderated it. I could have asked someone else to moderate it. I left it alone. So John, if you think WordWolf is harassing you, report it. But don't step into the gutter. Post 30 practically invited rebuke. I respect your intelligence enough that I don't think I have to spell it out for you. This is an interesting topic of discussion. Let's try to stick to it.

Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born. It doesn’t say how old Eve was. How long did Adam live without Eve? A year? 90 years? Because we don’t know how old Eve was when she gave birth to Seth. Also 130? Do you believe that? Really? Adam goes on to live another 800 years. Eve went on to live another [who gives a crap. She’s just a woman, so the Bible doesn’t bother telling you, because it’s not like she was an important figure in the history of mankind]. Seth was 105 years old when he became father of Enosh. Enosh was born when Adam was 235 years old. That’s the Bible talking, not me. Seth goes on to live another 807 years. Enosh is 90 years old when his son, Kenan, was born. If Enosh was 90, Seth was 195. Adam was 325. Kenan was born 325 years after the creation of Adam. 70 years later, 395 years after the creation of Adam, Mahalalel is born. 65 years later, 460 years after the creation of Adam, Jared is born. No indication of where he buys his lunch. 162 years later, 622 years after the creation of Adam, Enoch is born. 65 years later, 687 years after the creation of Adam, Methuselah is born. What happened to Enoch? To say Genesis is a little vague is an understatement. You guys can keep arguing about it all you want. I think the same thing happened to Enoch that happened to Frodo at the end of Lord of the Rings – nothing. It’s just a story. But it’s the Bible’s story! Adam is 687 years old when Methuselah is born. Adam is 874 when Lamech is born. When Lamech is 56 years old, Adam, the first man, dies. Now it gets interesting. 1,056 years after the creation of Adam, Noah is born. A couple of other calculations will make life interesting. Lamech dies at age 777. He was 182 when Noah was born. Methuselah was 369 years old when Noah was born. And Methuselah, we all know, died at the age of 969. Well played, Genesis writer! Because you later write that Noah was 600 years old when there was this rainstorm. So Methuselah either died in the Flood or on Floodmas Eve. The movie got it right! Anthony Hopkins' character DID belong in the story. Anyone see the movie? Did it mention that Metuselah was Noah's grandfather? The Flood was 1,656 years after the creation of Adam. [Caveat: months are not part of this calculation, so we COULD have a variance of up to 8 or nine years (for example, if Adam were 130 years and 11 months and 27 days old when Seth was born, etc).] By being SO precise about how old this person was when that person was born, Genesis undercuts the "it's not a complete genealogy" argument. It's either 1,656 years between the first man and the Great Flood, or Genesis is in actual error. Spoiler alert: it's B. Okay, but what about the women? Oh yeah, that’s right, who cares. Aside from fiction and legend, I don’t think you’re ever going to find any evidence that people lived to be these fantastic ages. Legends are not evidence. If legends are evidence of people living for centuries, they have to be allowed as evidence for all sorts of magic and nonsense. Nine hundred and 69 years. Please.

In Genesis 5, we begin some detailed chronological information. Earlier, there seemed to be some confusion about time, and I wanted to make my position clear. I do not believe Genesis presents a historically accurate account of things that actually happened. There may have been murders, but Cain never killed Abel because both are fictional characters (that’s my position). Cain never married his sister or an animal because Cain is a fictional character (that’s my position). Cain never built a city because… you get the idea. However, just because I don’t believe something does not mean I won’t acknowledge the Bible says it. For some reason, this was not clear earlier. T-Bone wrote about some scholars who tried to get an accurate date for the creation of Adam and Eve (post 86). I responded that those scholars were justified in treating the Genesis genealogies as complete specifically because of Genesis 5. In other words, I believe the Bible presents those genealogies as complete (post 90). My answer confused T-Bone, who wrote: “your view is inconsistent; in post #3 you declare Genesis is NOT history. But in post # 90 you argued the genealogies were a complete listing so the amount of time is fixed by the number… I don't follow your reasoning – if it's not history, in other words a myth then how can you say the genealogy lists are complete and fixes the time? And in post # 97 you go back to saying it's history… so is it history or myth?” Answer: It’s myth. That’s my position. And I am most certainly not saying that the accounts of Genesis are true. I am simply saying what I believe Genesis says and means. If you can understand my posts and accurately convey my opinions, without agreeing with me, then I can understand the Bible and accurately convey what it says without agreeing with it. We may disagree on how particular verses should be interpreted. But it should not be difficult at all to agree on what it SAYS. What it says is not a matter of opinion. Genesis 5 gives us names and ages that permit us to construct a timeline and calculate the “creation of Adam.” The ages in Genesis 5 are either accurate or they are not. If they are accurate, then we can date the creation of the first man (assuming Adam was the first man). If they are not accurate, then it is an error. Honest people can disagree, as T-Bone did earlier, but that’s where we stand. And with that, we look at Genesis 5.

I continue to be embarrassed that this guy ever impressed me.

Bump

"I'm not even supposed to be here today!"

Genesis 4 I am not going to jump on the “who was Cain’s wife?” bandwagon in the sense of there being no other women around. I agree that Genesis 4 says Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel, but it does not rule out their having other children, including daughters. I would have to argue that it is implied they had no other sons until Seth was born, after Abel’s murder. So, going strictly by what the Bible says and doesn’t rule out, Cain’s wife was his sister. And I guess God was OK with that. Miscellaneous question: Why don’t we know the names of ANY of Adam and Eve’s daughters? I mean, what’s a girl gotta do to get her name in the Bible? So far, get fooled by a talking snake with feet and instigate the fall of the human race qualifies for a mention. Let’s put a marker there and wait until the author of Genesis finally finds a woman worth mentioning by name again, shall we? Not that it’s an actual error, but it’s just fun. By itself, Genesis says absolutely nothing about why God looked with favor on Abel’s offering of fat portions from the firstborn of his flock, but He did not look with favor on the fruit of Cain’s soil. Ever notice that? If you lived in a time when the first book of the Bible was the ONLY book of the Bible, you would have no way of knowing why God accepted Abel’s offering but dissed Cain’s. Is it fair to argue that, according to the Bible at least, Adam, Eve and their progeny were the only human beings on earth? I mean, the notion that Cain married his sister is predicated on the idea that there were no other women available (ruling out his mom, of course. But why of course? I would have ruled out his sister “of course.” Where did the topic go? Oh, yes, there it is…). If there WERE other women available, then Cain’s wife was not his sister. Must have been some soulless woman-looking-thing that was not human in the same way Adam and Eve were human. If she was not Cain's sister, but she was fully human in every way that Adam, Eve and Cain were human, where did she come from? She wasn't descended from Adam and Eve. Was she fallen? WHY? HER parents didn't eat from the "don't eat from that" tree that God ordered Adam and Eve not to eat from before leaving them alone with it. So either Cain married his sister, or he married something similar to but not quite the same as a human woman. An animal, in other words. No? Well, what would YOU call it? . The notion of Cain building a city was covered in an earlier thread. It’s a fascinating thread in its own right. You can find it here.

I wanted to clarify this earlier post: The discussion of whether there are errors in Genesis covers a LOT of ground. A whole lot of ground. You could stick with Genesis 1 alone and spend the rest of your life exploring the implications of whether this verse is true, whether it conforms to our understanding of the world through science, whether our understanding of the world through science is true, etc. All of those questions and discussions would be ON TOPIC for a thread called "Actual Errors in Genesis." The only problem is, we'd never get past chapter 1. At some point, we have to agree to move on, not because the discussion is off-topic, but because it stops the progress of the conversation. In THAT light, I would ask that further discussion of evolution be moved to another thread. I did not mean to imply that evolution was off-topic for this thread. It is not. *** Secondly, I want to thank T-Bone for a vigorous debate on the Flood. If I understand our arguments correctly, we are leaving that discussion with neither of us having persuaded the other. Fair enough. And with that, we move on to Genesis 4...

I think Malachi 3:8-12 provides some Biblical justification for the notion that 9/10 goes farther with God's blessing on it than 10/10 does without. Whether it is correct for Christian believers to appropriate that particular Old Testament promise is a larger issue that we will not settle in a message board, but just because an idea is not phrased a certain way in the Bible doesn't mean there's nothing in the Bible to support the idea. For what it's worth, my belief is that the verse in Malachi is not talking about money at all. But who cares what I think. :)

Yes

Do NOT copy and paste whole sections of text from books. A line, a paragraph, even several paragraphs can be okay, IF you are commenting on the subtance of those paragraphs. You can’t just post all these things for our reading pleasure. Do not quote an entire chapter of a copyrighted work unless you have the written permission of that work’s author. Just a reminder. Missed a couple of glaring infractions.

David B. Actuslly.

Any updates?

A brief clip from The Courtship of Eddie's Father, a few notes from The Lonely Man, a package addressed to a pseudonym, a security guard, and a mangled catchphrase connect this 2008 movie to a 1970s tv show inspired by the same source material.

If we are going to discuss whether Yahweh is moral, the Old Testament law is important BECAUSE HE AUTHORED IT. Noting the role of Jesus Christ as "suspending" the law is all well and good, but it does not address the fact that God wrote the Old Testament law in the first place. Saying that Israel received the law because Israel wanted a king ignores two facts. One: that the Old Testament law was commanded by Yahweh CENTURIES before there was a king in Israel. Two: Any barbaric laws that WERE put in place by men are not factors in this discussion. The only question this thread is concerned with is God's morality. Is anyone trying to say that God did not write the Old Testament law? I would agree with you COMPLETELY! But that's not what the Bible says. The Bible gives God the credit for commanding some laws that we recognize today as being completely immoral. This thread is not about laws that are not attributed to God's command. Such laws are off topic. This thread is not about people who followed the law to the letter, nor is it about people who failed to follow the law. Those subjects are off topic. If you want to discuss them, start another thread. But don't bury THIS thread in a mountain of irrelevant information. This thread isn't even about good laws. We would expect good laws now and then from any man made set of laws. So what? A good law here and a good law there does nothing, not one thing, to detract from the fact that God imposed the death penalty for petty reasons, making you more moral than God. God regulated rather than abolished slavery. That makes you more moral than God. God's Laws on rape were utterly unfair to women. That makes you more moral than God. Many of you reading this are unaware that you really are more moral than God. And it's not just the Old Testament law. The New Testament refers to the law as holy just and good. The new testament does nothing to correct the old testament's most basic error on slavery. This thread is about God's morality. If you want to start a thread that's a survey of the Old Testament, have at it. Somewhere else. Not on this thread. I don't know how to be more clear.